In Brief: Mukesh Ambani might explore countersuit against Amazon; Paytm Money launches ETF

After Future Group-Reliance Retail Ventures deal was blocked by Amazon at a Singapore court, Reliance’s Mukesh Amabani might be exploring a countersuit against the e-commerce giant in India, as reported by Mint. Future Group too is likely to join the company in challenging the clause invoked by Amazon. Future Group’s offline assets like the Big Bazaar supermarket chain has been the point of contention between the rival companies. Reliance acquiring them would give it an advantage over Amazon as an offline retailer. This would also aid its new online venture JioMart.

Paytm Money introduces ETF on platform

Paytm Money, a subsidiary of Paytm (One97 Communications) launched exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on its platform, post-approval from Sebi (securities and exchange board of India). These are passive funds that are listed on NSE /BSE and traded like regular equity shares proving the merits of mutual funds along with the return potential of stocks. The investments start as low as Rs. 16 in Equity, Rs. 44 in Gold and Rs. 120 for NIFTY, according to a statement. The platform's interactive interface helps to track the price changes in the preferred ETFs along with the flexibility to set a price alert. It also updates the live prices of an ETF and empowers investors to place a sell order during the open market hours and receive the money directly in their bank account. Advanced investors can execute stop loss/target price orders allowing them to automate their risk management. The investor also gets the flexibility to invest via both the Paytm Money app and the Paytm Money website. The company is targeting 100,000 users investing in ETF in the next 12 to 18 months. In India, there are 69 different kinds of ETFs available across the index, gold, equity and debt categories with top-performing ETFs such as Aditya Birla Sun Life Gold ETF, Nippon India Nv20 ETF, LIC G-Sec Long Term ETF among others. They have delivered returns to the tune of 18.67%, 10.29% and 8.43%.

Amazon goes multi-lingual to onboard new sellers, MSMEs

Amazon has launched seller registrations and account management services in Tamil, which is expected to benefit over 43,500 Amazon existing sellers and lakhs of new sellers from tier - 1 and below markets such as Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Salem, Ranipet in Tamil Nadu, according to a statement. This comes after the Hindi version of the services platform, which saw thousands of new sellers from markets including Darbhanga in Bihar, Barmer in Rajasthan, Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh, Hailakandi in Assam and Bardhaman in West Bengal sign up on the Amazon.in marketplace. The Tamil language seller experience is available on Seller Central and the Seller Mobile App. Amazon India has been expanding the e-commerce opportunity to both customers and businesses in the areas of vernacular, voice and video enabled initiatives for the past few years. In September this year, ahead of the Great Indian Festival, it launched shopping experiences in four new Indian languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.

Cashaa-UNICAS JV to open first crypto friendly bank in India

London-headquartered Cashaa, a cryptocurrency neo bank, has entered into a joint venture with the United Multistate Credit Co. Operative Society (UNICAS) to expand India business. The JV will enable Cashaa to access UNICAS’ regulatory licenses, physical branches, and overall banking Infrastructure which includes 34 physical branches across north India. These branches will now have access to crypto banking services along with traditional banking facilities. The United’s existing branches will be transformed and modernized as Crypto Lounges. By 2021, UNICAS plans to expand to 100 branches. Cashaa will be allowing opening savings accounts with crypto wallets, disburse loans against cryptocurrencies, gold and real estate and also allow investing in cryptocurrencies, bonds and fixed deposits.